"Their fire-new stamp of honour scarce was current."[307]
When, therefore, the republican fury died away, and Buonaparte directed the respect of the people at large towards title and nobility, a distinct and superior influence was acquired by those who possessed such honours by hereditary descent. Napoleon knew this, and courted, and in some degree feared, the remainder of the old noblesse, who, unless he could decidedly attach them to his own interest, were exposed to surveillance and imprisonment on circumstances of slight suspicion. They became, however, so circumspect and cautious, that it was impossible to introduce the spies of the police into their salons and private parties. Still Napoleon was sensible of the existence of this party, and of the danger which might attend upon it, even while his followers had forgot perhaps that the Bourbons continued to live. "I thought him mad," said Ney (whose head, according to Fouché, could not embrace two political ideas,) "when taking leave of the army at Smorgoni, he used the expression, 'The Bourbons will make their own of this.'"[308]
STATE OF PARTIES—THE ROYALISTS.
This party began now to be active, and a Royalist confederation organised itself in the centre of France as early as the month of March, 1813. The most distinguished members are said to have been the Dukes of Duras, Trémouille, and Fitzjames; Messrs. de Polignac, Ferrand, Audrien de Montmorency, Sosthène de la Rochefoucault, Sermaison, and La Rochejacquelein. Royalist commanders had been nominated in different quarters—Count Suzannet in the Lower Poitou, Duras in Orleans and Tours, and the Marquis de Rivière in the province of Berry. Bourdeaux was full of Royalists, most of them of the mercantile class, who were ruined by the restrictions of the continental system, and all waited anxiously a signal for action.
Another internal faction, noways desirous of the return of the Bourbons, yet equally inimical to the power of Napoleon, consisted of the old Republican statesmen and leaders, with the more zealous part of their followers. These could not behold with indifference the whole fruits of the Revolution, for which so much misery had been endured, so much blood spilled, so many crimes committed, swept away by the rude hand of a despotic soldier. They saw, with a mixture of shame and mortification, that the issue of all their toils and all their systems had been the monstrous concoction of a military despotism compared with which every other government in Europe might be declared liberal, except perhaps that of Turkey. During the monarchy, so long represented as a system of slavery, public opinion had in the parliaments zealous advocates, and an opportunity of making itself known; but in imperial France all was mute, except the voice of hired functionaries, mere trumpets of the Government, who breathed not a sound but what was suggested to them. A sense of this degraded condition united in secret all those who desired to see a free government in France, and especially such as had been active in the commencement of the Revolution.
This class of politicians could not desire the return of the family in whose exile they had been active, and had therefore cause to fear the re-action with which such an event might be attended; but they wished to get rid of Napoleon, whose government seemed to be alike inconsistent with peace and with liberty. The idea of a regency suggested itself to Fouché and others, as a plausible mode of attaining their purpose.[309] Austria, they thought, might be propitiated by giving Maria Louisa the precedence in the council of regency as guardian of her son, who should succeed to the crown when he came to the age of majority. This expedient, it was thought, would give an opportunity, in the meanwhile, to introduce free principles into the constitution. But, while it does not appear how these theorists intended to dispose of Napoleon, it is certain that nothing but his death, captivity, or perpetual exile, would have prevented such a man from obtaining the full management of a regency, in which his wife was to preside in the name of his son.
GENERAL DISCONTENT—NEW TAXES IMPOSED.
A great part of the population of France, without having any distinct views as to its future government, were discontented with that of Buonaparte, which, after having drained the country of men and wealth, seemed about to terminate, by subjecting it to the revenge of incensed Europe. When these were told that Buonaparte could not bear to sit upon a tarnished throne, or wear a crown of which the glory was diminished, they were apt to consider how often it was necessary that the best blood of France should be expended in washing the one and restoring the brilliancy of the other. They saw in Napoleon a bold and obstinate man, conscious of having overcome so many obstacles, that he could not endure to admit the existence of any which might be insurmountable. They beheld him obstinately determined to retain every thing, defend every thing, venture every thing, without making the least sacrifice to circumstances, as if he were in his own person independent of the Laws of Destiny, to which the whole universe is subjected. These men felt the oppression of the new taxes, the terrors of the new conscription,[310] and without forming a wish as to the mode in which he was to be succeeded, devoutly desired the Emperor's deposition. But when an end is warmly desired, the means of attaining it soon come to occupy the imagination; and thus many of those who were at first a sort of general malecontents, came to attach themselves to the more decided faction either of the Royalists or Liberalists.
These feelings, varying between absolute hostility to Napoleon, and indifference to his fate, threw a general chillness over the disposition to resist the invasion of the strangers, which Buonaparte had reckoned on as certain to render the war national amongst so high-spirited a people as the French. No effort was spared to dispel this apathy, and excite them to resistance; the presses of the capital and the provinces, all adopted the tone suggested by the Government, and called forth every one to rise in mass for defence of the country. But although, in some places, the peasants were induced to take arms, the nation at large showed a coldness, which can only be accounted for by the general idea which prevailed, that the Emperor had an honourable peace within his power, whenever he should be disposed to accept of it.
In the meantime, new burdens were necessary to pay the expenses of the approaching campaign, and recruit the diminished ranks of the army. Napoleon, indeed, supplied from his own hoards a sum of 30 millions of francs;[311] but, at the same time, the public taxes of the subject were increased by one moiety, without any appeal to, or consultation with the Legislative Body, who, indeed, were not sitting at the time. In a council of state extraordinary, held on the 11th November, two days after his return to Paris, Napoleon vindicated the infliction of this heavy augmentation on a discontented and distressed country. "In ordinary times," he said, "the contributions were calculated at one-fifth of the income of the individual; but, according to the urgency of events, there was no reason why it should not rise to a fourth, a third, or a half of the whole income. In fact," he concluded, "the contribution had no bounds; and if there were any laws intimating the contrary, they were ill-considered laws, and undeserving of attention."[312]